FORA.tv Speaker - David R. Ignatius

Biography

Washington Post columnist associate editor David Ignatius has had a distinguished and wide-ranging career in the news business, serving at various times as a reporter, foreign correspondent, editor and columnist. He has written widely for magazines and published several novels.

Ignatius' twice-weekly column on global politics, economics and international affairs debuted on the Washington Post op-ed page in January 1999. He continued to write weekly after becoming executive editor of the Paris-based International Herald Tribune in September 2000. When the Post sold its interest in the IHT in January 2003, Ignatius resumed writing twice a week for the op-ed page and was syndicated worldwide by the Washington Post Writers Group. His column won the 2000 Gerald Loeb Award for Commentary and a 2004 Edward Weintal Prize.

Prior to becoming a columnist, Ignatius served as the Post's assistant managing editor in charge of business news, foreign editor, and editor of the "Outlook" section. Before joining the Post in 1986, Ignatius spent 10 years as a reporter for the Wall Street Journal and was an editor at The Washington Monthly. He has published articles in Foreign Affairs, The New York Times Magazine, The Atlantic Monthly, The New Republic, Talk Magazine and The Washington Monthly. Ignatius has written seven novels, including 2007's Body of Lies, which was adapted into a Warner Bros. film directed by Ridley Scott and starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Russell Crowe.

Raised in Washington, D.C., Ignatius attended Harvard College, where he graduated magna cum laude in 1973. He received a Frank Knox Fellowship from Harvard and studied at King’s College, Cambridge University, where he received a diploma in economics.